The Vacor Incident
by ravenstarwolf
Summary: When Aster Saphiren, commodore of the Starlen Empire, accidentally sparks a war between her empire and the strange and powerful Vacor Empire it is up to her to set things right again- or her race will be forced to engage in another useless war...
1. Prologue

A/N Starlens are blue fourlegged creatures with clawed feet, big blue and white wings, long muzzles, and a single antler on the nack of their heads, a spiked tail, and a feathers on their ankles. My spore name is ravenstarwolf, so you can check that out if you have Spore for what everything looks like.

"So, what I have to do is scan these creatures and that's it?" Aster asked. The Starlen on the transmission screen nodded.

"Scan them, and come back." He said in a formal tone.

_This guy really needs to loosen up,_ Aster thought. She flashed him a grin, displaying her sharp teeth. Starlens were carnivores, and had been since the beginning of creation.

"So, who is the idiot who crashed the Sporepedia anyway? Was it you? Is that why they stuck you as Mission Control, reminding all of us forgetful cadets exactly what where're supposed to be doing?" Aster teased.

"No," the Starlen said, and then grinned back at her. "If you must know, it was an unfortunate cadet called Roberto. I think they directed him toward a career of cleaning factory floors."

_So he does have a sense of humor,_ Aster thought. "Ah. So how did you gain the honor of Mission Control?"

"Will you just get on with the mission?" Mission Control snapped. Then the glint of humor returned to his eye. "And Cadet? Try not to blow up your ship. The big red button that is so unimaginatively labeled is self-destruct, not take a picture."

"Very funny, where exactly did you get that idea?" Aster asked. Mission Control didn't say anything, just grinned wider.

Aster went to close the transmission, then stopped. She turned back to Mission Control.

"What's your name, anyway?" she asked.

"Coyott," Mission Control replied. "Now shoo, go off on your extremely important mission of scanning those suspicious critters."

"Okay, Coyott," Aster said. "I think we'll get along just fine…"


	2. Oh, Great

"New mission, Commodore," Coyott said.

Aster sighed, blinking sleep out of her eyes. The transmission had woken her from the first real sleep she had had in days. She had had to pull her ship off the unnamed, T0 planet in the barren Salinc system that her spaceship had been parked on to receive the transmission from her homeworld, the planet Fidele. "Really, Coyott? Can't it wait for a few more hours, until morning?"

"It is morning, on Fidele," Coyott said, unfazed by her cross tone.

"Not on this Spode forsaken planet," grumbled Aster. "Well, anyway, what is the mission?"

"We need you to go to the nearest planet of the Selznic Empire," Coyott said. "Convince them to establish a trade route with us."

"The Selznic Empire?!" Aster said, hardly believing that her empire could be so stupid. "Is this some kind of bizarre joke? Or have our superiors all lost their minds?" The Selznic were a race of radically religious creatures that held a powerful empire of many solar systems. They had declared war on the Starlens thirty planetary rotations ago.

"They offered to make peace with us. A trading route would be a good way to strengthen the possibility of an alliance," Coyott replied. "Believe me, I think it's a doomed mission too, but what can I do about it?"

"Okay, well then I guess I'll be off," Aster said, turning her ship toward the nearest Selznic Empire system. With a flip of a switch her ship jumped to lightspeed. In seconds she was orbiting the star.

Three planets were in the system. One was a barren T0 planet like the one she had landed on earlier. The second looked lush and green, and registered that it was currently inhabited by creatures that hadn't reached sentience yet. The third was the Selznic planet. It was even more beautiful than the second planet from space; covered in forests of light blue trees, and dotted with pink spice geysers. However, Aster wasn't particularly interested in the view, nor did she care. All she wanted was to get this over with. She hated negotiating with the Selznic, because they were zealots. Logic, or even money did nothing to motivate them. Neither did guns. They just spewed religious nonsense and threatened you because you didn't follow their religious practices.

Aster knew why her empire was sending her on this mission, however. It was punishment for sparking the war with the Selznic in the first place. She winced as she recalled that incident…

The Selznic were refusing to answer her transmission. Really, they specifically request peace talks and then ignore her attempts to talk? It was annoying. More than annoying, plain rude.

_Fine, if that's the way you want it,_ Aster thought, and dove her ship down into the planet's gravity. The Selznic probably wanted to show there superiority by forcing her to come down and meet with them in person.

But as soon as she entered the planet's gravity she knew she was wrong. It wasn't pompousness that made the Selznic not reply to her transmissions. No, they were just luring her onto the planet. Into a trap.

Five Selznic ships were laying in wait for her. They were blue, camouflaging perfectly with the trees. They were twice the size of Aster's ship, equipped with heavy laser guns. The Starlen commodore rolled her ship out of the way of a laser blast from one of the ships, only to have her ship struck by a round from one of the others. The impact sent a violent shudder through her ship, smashing her against the instruments of her ship. In the minute it took her to regain control, her ship was hit by three more blasts. She wheeled the ship and sent a proton missile toward one of the ships. It spiraled toward the ground, exploding on impact. One of the remaining four ships rammed into her's. Warning lights flashed on her control panel. The ship was heavily damaged. It was shedding bolts and sheets of metal. Nothing critical had fallen off yet, but Aster doubted it could last much longer. One blast could finish her off.

Aster maneuvered her ship around, and dove straight at the ground, pulling up into a horizontal position seconds before the ship would have crashed. She skimmed the ground, under cover off the trees. The Salznic ships were confused by her tactics, but Aster knew it would only last momentarily. She shot up through the tree, straight toward the clouds and through the planet's gravity.

Her ship reentered space with a sickening grinding noise. She needed to get repairs very, very soon. The Selznic ships were just exiting the planet's gravity when she left the system, jumping to the closest system that had space travel. She didn't even pause to read the name of the empire.

A transmission from Mission Control was beeping gently at the corner of her screen, but she didn't have time to worry about it. Her ship was practically about to combust.

"Sorry Coyott," Aster muttered through gritted teeth as she guided the ship into the system she had jumped to. "But currently I'd rather live."

Aster managed to get her ship to the planet, and was just opening the transmission screen to bargain for repairs when her ship failed completely. It spiraled out of control, entering the planet's (which was called Relical) gravity roughly, and hurtling toward the ground. She was heading toward a city.

_Gadzooks!_ Aster thought, trying to pull the ship around in attempt to crash somewhere else. The ship only moved marginally, but she could see that only a few feet away from where she was going to crash was a pen of strange looking animals. She shifted the ship's course so instead of crashing into one of the city's houses she would crash into the pen of animals. Better to kill animals then sentient creatures.

The ship was approaching the ground rapidly. Parts of it were flying off and burning up in the heat of entering the gravity.

_This is going to hurt,_ Aster thought a second before the ship slammed into the ground.

She was right. It did hurt. A lot.

Through a haze of pain she saw some of the city's inhabitants approach the shattered ship. They didn't look happy, and were carrying guns.

_Oh hell,_ was Aster's last thought before darkness clouded over her vision.


	3. WHY?

**A/N Sorry for taking almost two months to update, I lost interest in the story. But thanks to my first review that interest came back, so here's the next chapter!**

Coyott stared at the empty transmission screen, willing Aster to answer his transmission. He looked at her tracking beacon. The galaxy was displayed, each star system shown as a color-coded dot. Green for ally, red for enemy, yellow for neutral, and gray for unknown. The Starlen Empire's ships were displayed as blue dots. Aster's ship had just disappeared into the Carralin System, it registered as a system with unknown space faring inhabitants.

Coyott sighed; there was nothing he could do. He knew Aster's ship had been badly damaged; she had probably fled to the Carralin System to get repairs. But would she make it? He shook his head in exasperation. Aster was so stupidly reckless, but this time it wasn't her fault. She had thought it was a stupid mission. And when Aster thinks something is reckless then it's probably downright insane.

But when it got down to it, none of them had a choice. Sure, you could reject the odd mission here, brush of a mission there- but when their Empire wanted you to do it you did it. Preferably as soon as possible, with maximum enemy casualties.

Aster blinked her eyes open. The dust was settling around the wreak of her ship, she had only been out for a few minutes. The inhabitants of the city were circling warily around the wreckage. They were silvery-gray creatures, standing on two legs, with antlers and shifty eyes. They had tusks protruding from their mouths, and guns clutched in their plant-like hands. They didn't look terribly friendly. Aster had just crashed in their city, after all.

"Uh, sorry," Aster said, managing to scramble to her feet. She was covered in cuts and bruises, as well as some not so small gashes, but nothing seemed to be broken. "I- I really am sorry," she said again. The creatures just stared at her. She began to wonder if they were sentient. She was speaking in the most common language in the universe- not native her native tongue, but one that was taught as a second language in most all main stream empires. Then again, Aster was pretty far away from the cluster of solar systems her home planet was located in.

"Sorry," she repeated, switching to the Selznick's language. Maybe these creatures would recognize that, since their planet was very close to the Selznick home planet. "I am Aster Saphiren, of the Starlen Empire. On behave of my empire, I extend greeting to your Empire, and apologize for crashing here."

"We could understand you before," a cold voice said. Aster was startled when she realized it had spoken in Starlen. The group of the creatures parted to reveal another one of. He was wearing swirling robes, and one of his antlers was broken off. He gave of an aura of coldness, cruelty.

"How- how do you know my language?" Aster gasped.

The creature studied her with hard amber eyes. Aster squirmed mentally, feeling like a lab toxiraptor. "We know a great many things," he said finally. "More than any other Empire in the Galaxy." His smile served only to show off blunt, herbivore teeth, with no humor behind it.

"Once again, I am sorry for causing such destruction," Aster said quickly. These creatures were just plain creepy. She couldn't wait to be on her way- but that might be a bit of a difficulty, given her ship was smashed to smithereens.

"Sorry?" the creature's cold façade fell away, to reveal the underlying rage. "_Sorry_ doesn't cover it! Look at the carnage you caused!"

He pointed with one of the four leaf-like fingers on his left hand. Aster looked.

Crushed beneath the twisted wreck of her ship were the creatures she had seen out of the view screen of her space ship on the way down. . They were even odder up close. A purplish red color, they seemed to have many to many eyes and mouths. They were hsaped a bit like scorpions, but there were motuhs all other their bodies, mouth at the end of their tail, mouth on their back. They didn't lack for eyes, either. A strange pinkish liquid was leaking from the corpses, which Aster assumed was their blood.

"I don't get it," she said, turning back to the alien. "I'm sorry I killed them, but they're just animals, aren't they? It would have been worse if I'd hit a building with sentients in it."

The lead creature looked like he was about to snarl something at her, but turned, his cold mask falling back into place. "I'm going to contact your Empire." He snapped, already walking away. "Hopefully they won't be so foolish as to defend a commodore who is stupid enough not to realize the worth of the Sacrenians."

"Sacrenians?" Aster said vaguely. A pair of the creatures came up behind her, pushing her after their leader.

_Coyott,_ she reflected, _is going to kill me._

The put Aster in a room with three guards posted at the door. She still didn't understand WHAT she had DONE, but these were very strange creatures. She managed to wheedle from one her guards the species were called 'Vacors'.

She sat in a catlike position, her tail curled around her back legs, staring at the wall. It seemed like hours had passed when the guards stepped aside to let the leader Vacor enter the room.

"I spoke with a rather low-ranked official of yours," the leader spat. "He refused to give a definite answer, said he needed to consult with his commanders." He glared at Aster. "You're race is most inefficient."

"Not really," Aster said, grinning mockingly. "Most races are large enough that they have lower ranking creatures answer transmissions, the leaders have more important things to do. Only leaders of tiny, unimportant races answer transmissions personally, or send them personally."

The Vacor hissed in rage as she laughed. In a flash he rose on wings Aster hadn't noticed before, they had been hidden beneath skin flaps, and struck her front legs with one taloned foot. White-hot pain rushed through her body, and she had to clench her teeth the stop hersdelf from screaming. The Vacor smiled at her pain, watching.

When she had regained some of her composure, she growled "What was that for?"

"Disrespecting me," the Vacor said, turning around and walking toward the door. "Now, I suggest you keep your mouth shut," was his parting comment. The guards left with him, slamming the hard door of the room closed. Aster heard the click of a lock. She sighed, examining her front legs. Her left leg was just bruised, but the Vacor's talons had ripped through the flesh of her right.

Aster reached around, and grabbed a little electronic transmitter that was attached to the base of her wing. All space captains of the Starlen Empire had one. It was for emergencies only, had very little battery, and was sound-only. Still, she might be able to get through to Coyott…


	4. Kappa

"Still here?" a voice said. Coyott turned to see Kappa, another Starlen Captain, standing in the door. She was tall, taller than him, with numerable scars on her front paws, chest, and and muzzle, marking her career in explosives.

"I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be here," Coyott said, as Kappa walked to stand by him.

"I'm pretty sure that your shift is over," Kappa said, flashing him a short-lived smile. He could see she was worried.

"Come for news of Aster?" Coyott said. Kappa nodded. Coyott knew she and Aster had went to school and training together, and were pretty close. But their responsibilities as Space Captains kept them from seeing each other for months at a time. Aster and Kappa mostly communicated through Coyott, asking for news and leaving messages for the other.

"Haven't seen her for almost half a year," Kappa said.

"Well, you're going to get a kick out of this," Coyott said. "As much as I'm worried, I sure am annoyed Aster can get herself into these Impossible situations." He shook his head. "The goverement is not happy."

"What did she do?" Kappa said waving her tail side to side slightly.

Coyott explained how Aster had crashed on Relical, and the strange Vacors. "I can't do anything more without consulting my superiors."

"Well, you could put me on a rescue mission," Kappa said sweetly. "You needn't tell the government."

"If you were caught, the results would be disastrous for your career," Coyott said, tapping the screen with one of his claws.

"I've broken the rules much less then Aster," Kappa protested. "I'm the one who does things by the book."

"The mess at Bella-4," Coyott said. "Pretty much makes it so if you cross the line one more time you'll be working in a factory for the rest of your life."

Kappa grimaced. That incident had been worse than everything Aster had ever done. "Ug, it wasn't my fault."

"Actually, it was," Coyott said. "You didn't stop to read your info, just made assumptions. Didn't stop to wait until the non-infected citizens were evacuated. Thirty-two non-infected citizens killed."

Kappa closed her eyes. "Don't think I don't see it in my sleep every night." She opened her eyes. They were angry. Maybe Coyott had pushed her too hard to make his point.

"Look, what's the worst that could happen to Aster in there?" Kappa said.

"Indefinite. I don't have enough info. The Vacor leader demanded that we let his race punish Aster for her crimes. I have the impression they won't do anything to Aster until someone high up in our government talks to their leader. They want recognition." Coyott paused, tapping a few button on the computer screen. "Here, I'll show you the transmission, I recorded it."

"Recognition for what exactly?" Kappa said, leaning over his shoulder. Before Coyott could answer, an alarm rang on his control board. He looked at the screen, then back at Kappa.

"It's Aster's emergency transmitter," Coyote said.

"Well, open a link, or whatever you do to answer it!" Kappa exclaimed.

Coyott answered it. A thin voice, distorted by light-years of space, but still recognizable, said "Coyott? Are you getting this? It's me, Aster."

"Coyott?" Aster said into the transmitter. "Are you getting this? It's me, Aster."

"Aster?" Coyott's voice was muffled by static, but she could hear him.

"Who else?" Aster said.

"Fine mess you got yourself into," Another voice came through the transmitter. Aster couldn't believe her ears.

"Kappa?" she exclaimed.

"The one and only," Kappa replied.

"Are you okay?" Coyott asked.

"Yeah…" Aster said. "At least mostly. I don't get what I did to offend these creatures so much."

"You CRASHED in one of their cities," Kappa said.

"That's true," Coyott said. "But what offended them most is that you violated their oldest, most sacred rule."

"Which is?" Aster said.

"You killed Sacrenians," Coyott said.

"Those purple things?" Aster said, confused.

"When the Vacor leader contacted me, he said that the Sacrenians were the empire that Uplifted them into a Space-faring race," Coyott replied.

"But- aren't the Sacrenians non-sentient?" Aster said.

"Yes- but apparently at one point they were sentient," Coyott said. "I don't know, exactly. But they point is, you're in big trouble."

"I kind of figured that out," Aster said sarcastically.

"It's worse than that," Coyott said. "The Vacor leader demanded that the Starlen Empire drop any ties of responsibility with you, and let them deal out punishment to you. I fear that our Empire will comply."

"WHY?" the exclamation came not from aster, but from Kappa. "Is our Empire so weak that it is afraid of new comers to space?"

"I don't think the Vacors are new to space," Coyott said grimly. "They knew how to speak Starlen. I think they have been able to go into space for centuries, but have been waiting, observing through satellites or something." Coyott paused. "I think they could make very powerful enemies."

"What should I do then?" Aster asked. Coyott said something, but there was too much static to hear him. The connection failed.

Coyott sighed as the burst of static cut him out. The frail connection had been severed.

Kappa stared at the transmitter. Neither of them spoke. Minutes passed. A loud beep broke the silence. Coyott checked one of the computer screens. His heart plummeted.

"The Starlen Empire says we cannot risk inflaming the situation," Coyott said. "We are ordered to comply to the Vacors."

Kappa let a long, angry hiss escape from her mouth. She turned away abruptly, and stalked to the door. "I'm going after Aster," she said.

"If our Empire finds out, which they probably will-"

Kappa cut him off. "Don't, DON'T for a second think that my reputation or job is worth more than my friend's life just because I usually stick to the book, because neither of them is."

"I was just suggesting you not succumb to the same recklessness as Aster," Coyott said angrily. "You'll wind up dead or captured, and that won't do anyone any good."

Kappa took a deep breath. "I will, Coyott. But not now, I'll plan on the way," Kappa said. "I'll contact you if I need info."

She was halfway out the door when she said one last thing. "Oh, Coyott? Please tell the spaceport security not to come after me, or else I can and will shoot them down."


End file.
